The Galactic Center

One of the busiest areas in our sky, this is the region around the
Galactic Center near the border obetween Scorpius and Sagittarius.
This is a 30-minute exposure on Ektachrome 400 taken from Cerro Tololo, Chile
(and scanned at fairly high density), using a Canon 50mm
lens wide open at f/1.8 .
North is at the top in this view, which spans an area about
27 by 40 degrees. This view shows the intricate absorbing dust lanes which
block our view of the galactic center, and the yellowish color of the
old bulge stars (dimmed to brownish when there's noticeable reddening
by interstellar dust). This film has a very strong response to the
red light of H-alpha from emission nebulae, so that the many H II
regions in this direction show up well.

Can't tell the players without a program? Have a look at the
labelled version of this picture, which marks the 17 Messier
objects in this area, plus constellation lines and some of the
more prominent non-Messier clusters and nebulae to be found here.
They include the
Eagle ,
Omega,
Lagoon, and
Trifid nebulae, the globular clusters M25,
M22, M28, M54, M69, and NGC 6723,
open clusters
M6,
M7,
M23, M21, and M18, plus the star cloud
M24. Also to
be seen are the
dark Pipe Nebula (recently described by John Shibley as part of the
Dark Horse Nebula) and Baade's Window, best known as the region with the clearest
optical view into the central bulge of the Milky Way and therefore
especially important to our understanding of the structure and
evolution of our Galaxy. Studying this area from Northern Hemisphere
observatories can be interesting - from the Crossley reflector at
Lick Observatory, I recall lying on the observing floor looking up
into the guiding eyepiece to get a plate of Baade's Window.